Friday, August 3, 2012

Since I last wrote, the Schmidt's have undertaken a number of exciting adventures.

In mid-July, the whole family joined Alicia for a 4-day conference in Sunriver, OR. We stayed at a very nice resort (on the company dime) and spent our time playing in the waterpark and riding our bikes. While Alicia was busy working (smoozing and playing golf) the girls and I made the most of our time.

One day I took the girls to an old lava cave about a mile from the resort. We rented a lantern and headed down into the bowels of the earth. While the weather on the surface was a balmy 78 degrees, in the cave it was about 40 degrees. The Roses braved the cold and the darkeness for a good 45 minutes as we winded our way deeper into the cave. When the walls had narrowed to just under 3 feet and the ceiling to 5 feet high, they decided they had seen enough.

I'm not sure what they expected. Did they think we could just ring a bell and some Sherpas would come and carry us back to the entrance of the cave? Children, if I could afford Sherpas, I wouldn't be driving a 2002 Town and Country Minivan.

We checked out of our room in Sunriver on Wednesday and headed to Portland for the remainder of the week. Alicia had a couple clients she was going to visit and since it was the halfway point between Sunriver and our house, we figured we'd hang out with mom. We checked in for a two night stay and went to bed. In the morning Alicia met a coworker and went to her client's office. The girls and I headed down to the Portland Zoo and spent the better part of the morning looking at animals. By 2:00pm, the girls were beat and hungry so we decided to head back to the room for lunch. As we opened the door to our hotel room we noticed all our stuff was missing. What the hell? The beds weren't made, towels were on the floor, and all our stuff was gone! We've been robbed! I angrily called down to the lobby and asked for a manager to come to our room. I explained to her that we left for the morning and now all our belongings are gone! Anya added, "They even took our blankies!" The manager apologized and called down to the housekeeping department.

"Sir it appears housekeeping hasn't been through your room yet, did you check the windows to make sure they were locked?" We went through the place and there were no signs of a break-in. How could this happen? The manager asked if we had checked out early. "Um, since this is my hotel room and we'll be staying until tomorrow, I think I would know if we checked out early..." The nerve of this gal, right? Then she gets a call from the lobby. "Sir, can you head down to the lobby? There is a woman there with some luggage, is it possible it's your wife?" I seriously doubted it since my wife was at a client, but I humored her. And there she was, with all our stuff neatly piled up next to a desk. "What the #$%@# Alicia!"

"I tried calling you, our client didn't have any space for us to work so we decided to head back home today. I thought you'd be excited?" Excited wasn't exactly what I was feeling at the moment. I went back to our room and apologized to the manager and rounded up the girls for our drive home. It was a quiet drive until my blood pressure returned to a healthy level.

Tip of the Day - When you have a cell phone and are out of town, don't leave it in the hotel room. Plans change and you feel like an ass when you have 4 messages saying "We're checking out early" and you harass a hotel manager that someone stole all your shit.